'Tis the season for electronics

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- While the clothing department and sporting goods sections were crowded at the Atlantic Terminal Mall's Target in Brooklyn, N.Y., early Friday, they didn't come close to the frenzy over in the area that's the perennial favorite for holiday shoppers: electronics.

The line of people queued up to get their hands on everything from video games to digital camera's stretched for maybe 100 yards, snaking through store isles and tying up cross-store traffic culminating at the electronics desk.

The line outside of the Circuit City in Brooklyn, New York snaked 150 yards down the sidewalk.

One of the hottest items in the store was a 19" TruTech flat screen TV for $179.

"I see everyone's getting it, I don't know how much it's worth," said Margalie Simon," toting her own TruTech out of Target (Charts) alluding to the fact that she didn't know the retail price, but thought it was a good deal.

Simon said she came down at six in the morning to pick up a Christmas tree and a DVD player, but saw the flat screen TV and had to come back.

"Now I can throw away some of those heavier TVs," she said.

Evidently the TruTech TV's ran out early, because by 8:30 a.m. several people in line at the Circuit City across the street said they were there to pick up a TV, having missed out on the Target deal.

Shoppers wanting to get into the Circuit City, which opened at 5 a.m. had to contend with long lines even after the doors opened since the store was regulating the inflow of customers to avoid overcrowding.

Circuit City (Charts) was advertising deals including a 42-inch Samsung flat screen TV for $799, nearly half off its regular retail price, and an iRiver music and movie player for $129, down from $200.

The store had a line 150 yards long that ran down the sidewalk on Atlantic Avenue and was headed by at least four New York City police officers.

Sheila Collins, 30, said she was looking for a new camera, a GPS system, and a desktop computer with all the accessories that she saw advertised for $600.

'I'm looking for a whole electronics makeover," she said.

At a Best Buy (Charts) on 23rd street in Manhattan, general manager Armando Lopez said they had sold out of Sony's (Charts) PS3 video game player last week, but the games themselves were generating big interest.

Lopez said laptops and flat screen TVs in all price ranges were among other big sellers.

He said Microsoft's XBox 360 was selling well, despite competition from newer game consoles.

And in what must be good news for Microsoft (Charts), Lopez said the company's new Zune digital music player was selling at about an even pace with Apple's (Charts) iPod, long the dominating player in the market.

-CNNMoney.com editor at large Paul R. La Monica contributed to this report.